


a kiss from death

by sophthebi



Category: No Country for Old Men (2007)
Genre: Blood and Injury, Blood and Violence, F/M, Gun Violence, Older Man/Younger Woman, Smut, anton is quite beautiful, death and maiden vibes again cause that's my jam, he could make a pile of poop on his head look pretty, i may continue this, i mean it is javier, that bowl cut does things to me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:14:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22402390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sophthebi/pseuds/sophthebi
Summary: You come into contact with Death in the form of man you can't begin to understand, but fate had not sent him for you, not for your soul.You were just an unlucky witness to his reaping.
Relationships: Anton Chigurh/Original Female Character(s), anton chigurh/reader
Comments: 19
Kudos: 56





	1. the coin toss

**Author's Note:**

> I recently watched No Country For Old Men, and I absolutely loved it. What an amazing film. The acting was phenomenal, as was everything else (cinematography, sound design, script, makeup and effects) 
> 
> Also, Anton can like step on my neck, murder me and i'd thank him.

The man wasn’t anything unordinary, not when you had first seen him at reception, not when he faded away into one of the many motel rooms. If he had been anything other than ordinary, the manager would never have rented the room out to him. He was tall, had longer hair, and perhaps a unique face, handsome, but that’s all that had stood out to you. 

Maybe if you had peered closer, your skin would have chilled at the eyes, predatory and with nothing familiar. There was nothing there, nothing comforting about the figure, this agent of violence and chaos. Not how he walked, how his eyes scanned without flaw. Seeing details that you’d never imagined to be important, details that were now the only thing keeping you one step ahead of death. 

Nights like these could get painfully boring, to the degree of a sick stomach and headache. Reading could only do so much to pass the time, sitting with the manager, helping them run the place just because they happened to be a family friend, and just because you supposedly had little to do. Nights like these made up for work “experience”, bits of cash here and there, but mostly drowsy eyes, awkward silences and sweat dripping down the back of your neck for just sitting behind a desk. 

A reason perhaps as to why you were so unreactive to the first loud bangs that echoed from somewhere in the row of rooms. Why you both had assumed it was someone’s tv, the volume up too high. Why not even one little hair on your body stood up, why not a sliver of discomfort climbed its way up your spine, why your fingers were so easy to control, so precise as you the flipped pages of a forgettable magazine. 

The manager, the woman your aunt was friends with, told you to watch the desk while she politely asked whoever it was to tune down the volume. You didn’t watch the desk. Instead taking the moment of isolation to close your eyes, expecting her to be back any minute frustrated from an argument with the perpetrator. 

The office light hummed with need of maintenance, burning too bright and warm. Mosquitoes surrounded your head, some managing to get some bites in when you were too slow to slap at them.  
Every moment trying to sleep for a little, was a moment of irritation and discomfort. 

Although the sound died down, she never returned. Eyes opened, the mosquitoes and humming of the broken lights seemed to leave you alone, feeling your nervousness, escaping the looming danger, just as uneased. The night still, yet nothing inside you, passive. Every little hair upright, a cold touch smoothing up your back like the gaze of a predator, fingers no longer able to hold the magazine firmly. 

The telephone was not far, neither was the key to the safe under the desk, a handgun sitting in it, probably not even loaded, rendered useless, and yet, you were frozen in your chair regardless of it all. Heavy, masculine footsteps closed in, intruding your senses. The silhouette quickly adjusted to a clear sight. Nothing unordinary. Tall, long hair, a unique face, handsome even, exactly the same as when you had first seen him. The only difference was his eyes had locked with yours. And, there was nothing there, nothing comforting in his dark eyes. Nothing familiar. If only you had peered closer, see this earlier, and felt the predator before it was too late… Trapped under a broken light and surrounded by little things that wanted to eat you, being watched by this man, that looked at you as if he wanted to eat as well. 

You felt everything in his silent stare, all but mercy. 

Your mouth opened too soon, nothing came out, and his dark eyes watched, waited for whatever you were to say, “Can I help you sir?” His lips moved into a humoured smile for a glimpse of time, or perhaps not, perhaps just a twitch in his mouth, either way, impossible to understand what emotion he was feeling when it happened. Whatever it was, it never reached his eyes.

“I don’t know, how can you help me?” 

You didn’t hear what he said, more the sound of it. Accented and low, almost harmless, until you processed the swarming feeling of unease, isolation and his forever intense gaze. 

“My boss,” you whispered, and he barely heard it, clearly then amused in some strange way by your obvious discomfort, “She went over to the rooms not just a moment ago. One of the tv’s was too loud. Sounded like gunfire. She should be back.”

The amusement faded as quickly as your confidence, and his demeanour left you undecided. “Who is she to you?” 

“My boss-”

“-you already said that. What is she to you? If she were just your boss, you would have been fired long ago.” You were undecided once more of his intent. Condescending, disapproving of your position for whatever reason, but why he still stared into you like a mission, a thing he needed to finish left nothing but confusion and a horrid suspicion you didn’t want to believe. 

“She’s a family friend sir. She offered me to wor- help her a few nights a week. My parents thought I should say yes…”

“I see.” He smiled, then broke your uncomfortably locked eyes, looking down at something in his hand. It glittered under the light, a coin. “Do you enjoy it?” He peered in your eyes again, undeniably uninterested in your answer, more so calculating something, giving himself time. 

“I-I guess so, sir. Look, I think I need to go see where my bo- where she is.” 

He didn’t vocalise any response when you all but calmly stood from your chair, grasping at the desk for support to escape from the small and hot environment of the office. There was no choice but to pass by him, and he made no sign of moving out of your way. Brushing past, physically having to touch him, left you numb and abruptly cold, your back to this darkness and mysteriousness you couldn’t understand. You walked fast, dress and cardigan blowing with the breeze, forcing your hands to hold them down, rising a concoction of panic and self-consciousness. 

He didn’t follow. But he was gone from the office like a ghost, when you peered over your shoulder. 

You walked faster, coming to a sprint, looking out for a familiar face amongst the block of rooms. It wasn’t long before you noticed one of the doors was wide open, with a bulky shadow laying in its way, keeping it from shutting. 

The nearer you got, the more you realised what it was. Metallic smell, a buzzing in the air, something horrible had just occurred. 

You didn’t scream. You didn’t have time to. 

Splitting wood. Pressure, unnatural. A messy sound, then a gasp. It was an old man, a shot gun in his hand and with the eyes of someone who had just made the worst mistake of their life. 

You could have sworn he whispered sorry before another loud bang deafened beside you, the mans blood splattering, wet and warm, in your eyes and mouth, staining your dress that was already sticking to your skin. You fell, legs giving out, from an odd need to close your eyes and sleep, collapsing onto your back, but forcing yourself to look up. 

The man was there. 

Watching with those dark eyes. You didn’t want to see the gun in his hand, nor the angel of death and so looked down, to see bubbles of blood, red and thick gushing from your side. 

The first thing to come from your mouth was a whimper, weak and without purpose, your hands immediately clenching onto the blood, the dress. The pain came with the touch, burning in more than one place. 

The man, tall and with dark long hair, knelt down, moved away your hands with much larger and stronger ones. Gentle. Too frightened to see the damage as he peeled the skirt of your dress up to just above the side of your waist, you locked eyes with him for the first time by your own choice.

“Collateral damage. There is shrapnel, but it doesn’t look to have hit any organs or arteries. He wasn’t a good shot.” 

He continued to study it, almost disappointed, no concern although that was the least you expected from him, Afterall, you were certain he had shot everyone, including your boss, in that room, and he had indefinitely murdered that old man right in front of you. 

You grasped at his arm, nails digging into his jacket, bloodying it, with desperate pleas, muttering if he was going to kill you or not. He met your eyes, watery and wet, with tears so out of place. But there was no sadness. Just disappointment. 

He never answered, only let go of you to dig something from his pocket. That same gleam. That coin.

You swallowed with great pain, silent as he rolled the coin with agile fingers and eyes. “I’m going to toss this coin, and I want you to call whether it’s heads or tails.” He locked your eyes again, demanding you say yes, or want yes. He wanted you to want this. He did nothing more until you nodded in agreement, with nothing else to do, somehow aware you were giving him something you could never get back. Something no one should ever bet on. But he was not one to refuse, and you had little choice. 

You could sense a formidable belief in him, a religion of his own creation. He was expecting to be proven right, from the veins beginning to pulsate excitedly in his neck, his eyes wavering all over you, breathing in and out deeply as if maybe he was standing to lose something, and yet, you were the one bleeding out beneath him.

Eyes predatory, drawing out chills in your skin, scanning, and calculating. 

“Are you ready?” You gulped in a breath just before nodding again, finalising the 50/50 chance, unknowing of what you stood to gain or lose, only knowing that it was dearly important and that this night would last forever or end as soon as it began if you picked wrong. 

A metallic sound, like gentle bells ringing, sounded in your ears as the coin flew into the air, rotating over and over, falling back to the top of his hand, the other holding it down, hiding away your only salvation, the only thing keeping you one step ahead of death itself. 

He smiled. You grimaced as the pain worsened. Barely holding onto consciousness. “Call it,” he said, almost encouragingly, dark eyes wide and anticipating your answer like a child. 

“What happens once I do?” Your voice was strained and it hurt to breathe and all you wanted was to close your eyes and sleep, but you knew if you did, you’d never wake up again. 

“That depends entirely on your answer.”

“And if my answer is right?”

He laughed, too human, too familiar, you preferred when he was unidentifiable. “Then fate is on your side.”

“And if I lose?” Lips parted, sweat and blood dribbling down your face onto your tongue, you died every second he didn’t speak and instead watched with empty eyes, you. 

“Call it.”

You didn’t, couldn’t, mouth shivering and mind losing agility. He frowned, wanting this so bad, something to be proven. 

“Call. It.”

This was your fate now, this was what you had to do, no matter the outcome. This man wasn’t just a man, he was a mountain that had come out of nowhere, or you hadn’t been looking when you walked into it. 

A force of nature.

You said your answer and he unveiled the coin. 

You couldn’t see it, only his reaction. He breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had known what was on the face of that coin the whole time when it stopped spinning, that he had predicted correctly whether fate was on your side or not. 

One of his hands slipped below your legs, grasping your thigh, and the other, supporting the middle of your back. He lifted you, gathered you in his arms, and you whimpered, the movement agonising, and breaking back down the adrenaline that had kept you awake through it. His equal warmth and cold, his equal comfort and terrifying nature put you to sleep fast. He was carrying you somewhere and that’s all you knew.

The angel of death was stealing you away.


	2. the kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Much of this fic was inspired by the scenes in the film, obviously, including Anton's emergency motel surgery, and the coin toss at the Texaco gas station, and his confrontation with Carla-Jean. 
> 
> It was also inspired by a very close friend who is the most genius person ever, I hope this is to your liking (with the hair pulling and choking haha). As well as another genius who inspired me to go with the motel surgery. It was fun to write!

You awoke drowsy and with crusted eyes and an immense pain that had you moaning into a sharp wake. At first you had believed to be dead and lost in purgatory, stuck in an unfamiliar room, a motel room, on a bed. Not the motel you had been shot at. 

The man had taken you here. 

Death itself. 

But you weren’t dead. You were in your dried, bloodied dress, your cardigan and boots on the floor below you, atop of clear plastic wrap, and you were on a towel covered bed and he was in the small floral-wall papered bathroom, watching you. 

Something primal kept you quiet, let him come to the bed. And something in his eyes told you that coin toss had saved your life, and now the angel of death was going to tend to your wounds. 

There was no need for talk as he began. And you were conflicted on whether it was fear or intelligence that made you think so. 

Scissors, with scissors, he cut up the weakest part of your dress, not paying any mind to anything beneath it, not that you would have had the energy to care if he did. He peeled the sticky and metallic smelling fabric from your body, to find bare breasts. 

Again, he didn’t pay any mind to your body, only the wound. 

The pain peaked to a sudden height when his hands finally come into touch with your skin, pressing his palm to your stomach, your sternum as if to ask you stop breathing so heavy and fast. 

You watched him, arms propping yourself up the tiniest bit, with much fight and ignorance, against his judgment too, as he inspected the still bleeding wound closer. You learned you hadn’t been passed out long, and that the old man did have poor aim, otherwise your stomach would have been a sight akin to the insides of a pie, although the amount of red and pain did make it seem that way. 

His hair was slightly dishevelled as his upper-half hovered over your body, the rest of him in a wooden chair next to the bed. 

Perhaps from the loss of blood and deliriousness of pain, you were more susceptible to him visually, finally noticing the more pleasant aspects of him. Finding a calmness in his strange beauty and of course, his lack of humanity even with that beauty. A strong facial structure, eyes of an angel for their darkness and almost tired look. Lips pink and parted as he concentrated, at his most vulnerable, because you were just a soul that fate had collided him with. 

His hands, although veiny and masculine, had a softness to them. Or maybe it was the way he was touching your stomach, the skin and flesh surrounding your wound, and the tenderness of it.

The wound itself was a sickening sight, and you always had a high tolerance for gruesome sights, but not this time, not now when you felt close to vomiting. 

There was a source to all of this blood you were losing, a reasonably sized cavern in an awkward position just below your waist. It was deep and large, and with it were smaller caverns of flesh and skin, bits of wood sticking out in some of them, blood oozing from it all, more so if he put pressure in a certain place. 

Your head collapsed back into the mattress, unable to stomach it any longer. 

“You nearly went into hypovolemic shock; you’ve lost much blood.” His voice was welcoming and you didn’t want it to stop. “You are lucky nothing hit your iliac artery.” 

“I don’t even know what that is,” came your high-pitched and breathless response, moans of discomfort more so the language you were speaking. 

“I drew a bath for you while you slept. I need you to try and get up.”

Panic appeared in your face, and he eyed you for a long moment, standing from his chair and offering his much taller body for support. Again, you warned yourself that it was best to do as he said. The man had killed those people, whatever he was, and he was methodical and he would find a way to torture you if you took your chance of survival for granted. He was insane, but he was going to keep you alive for that coin. 

He did most of the work, paralleling to when he lifted you into his arms back in your old life, before you passed out, before the old man shot you mistaking you for the killer, and before then, the hot broken light, and predatory eyes. Only this time, you were bare and vulnerable, although you had been the same with clothes under the gaze of this man. 

There was something of a sadistic creature in him, he plopped you down on your feet when the bath was so close, instead of carrying you all the way. Again, you bit your tongue, already in misery and not wanting more. The moment he did so, you fell into him, legs not strong enough nor your pain tolerance high enough. He grabbed you, hands locking onto your ribs, just below the curves of your breasts. There was a sharp intake of breath, and you didn’t whose it was. All you knew was his touch was equally kinder than you expected, and more terrifying than you could have ever imagined. 

He helped in you climbing over the side, feet going in first, dried and wet blood bursting in clouds of red in the warm water. It wasn’t a deep bath, and when sat down, back and head resting on the rim of the porcelain, the water reached to not even your hipbones. 

You looked up at him, clueless and naive, like a child not sure of what to do. His face didn’t change, just the same void eyes and fallen angel face. Instead of answering with his voice, he dived his hand into bath water, between your legs, retrieving not only a washer you had not noticed, but a hitched breath from you. And he heard it, a twitch in his mouth as he began washing away blood from your legs and stomach, but not the wound. Not yet. 

“Why are you helping me?” 

A thought came to your mind as soon as you spoke, that you suddenly hated the sound of your voice. Southern accent, too innocent and young and foolish sounding, there was nothing wrong with it, but compared to his, it was just a baby deer in the maws of a wolf. 

He then moved on to your face and hair. 

There was nothing kind in it, but he wasn’t unnecessarily rough, wiping away the dried blood from your chin, your eyebrows, your eyes, but he never touched by your lips.

“You didn’t kill me like you killed the others, but you wanted to. I saw it. You were disappointed.” 

His jaw clenched, and he dropped the washer with a splash at the other end of the bath, going over to the sink and washing his hands with what looked to be an antiseptic liquid and tap water. 

You had been crying the entire time, from the moment you woke up, but it had more weight to it now, thinking of how close to death you truly were, how close to death you are, naked and with no shield to hide from it. “And you let a fifty-fifty coin toss decide.” 

He returned to the bath, kneeling down and locking eyes with you in that haunting way of his. “Try not to scream, this will hurt.” 

You didn’t scream, but you grunted, neck straining and heart beating fast, nails clawing into the porcelain, teeth grinding into each other. His eyes dilated, the beast in him possibly confused by the sound and the fact, in a way, he was the source of agony, the cause of it. Dousing the wounds with water over and over, blood with it. You wept and scratched your throat every time you couldn’t hold in the beginning of a scream, your voice metamorphosing into a husky, broken thing from scattered grunts and wails. 

When that was over, he forced you to stand in the tub, your hands latched onto his shoulders, and his, grabbed a bottle filled with antiseptic and saline, spraying it onto your wounds. 

Time passed quickly, some of it you weren’t sure you were completely there, feeling or thinking. You mustn’t have as you had no recollection of being put onto the lid of the toilet, the man, as usual, kneeling before you, injecting your wounds with an anaesthetic.

The injections didn’t hurt as much as you had dreaded in the moment it occurred, nor did him poking the sanitised tweezers in and out of the hole in your side, pinching out fragments of shotgun projectiles as well as the wood of the door frame, and bits of your dress. 

He was a focused man, but you knew his attention could span everything, every little movement, every noise, every scent. He wasn’t a man, he was some…thing, something else. 

Eyes heavy, your head fell into his chest as he wrapped a bandage around your waist, tightly and not gentle. You took the moment to breathe, to rest, and with that, you found he smelt pleasant, pleasant for someone who had killed those people at the motel, your aunts’ friend and probably more, from the past and into the future. Part of you wanted to know why, but that part also knew the answer. He wasn’t an impulsive murderer; this was a career. It was a job, but you weren’t that job. 

You were just fate. 

All of this chaos had happened in two hours, the only clock in the motel room told you so. It was a little before midnight, corroborating with the still night sky and empty streets below when you peered out the window, standing there in just your underwear and with bandage wrapped around you.

You felt little pain, at least no physical pain really. 

The man was in the bathroom on his own, the door shut, probably bathing himself and cleaning the mess up. Not that it mattered to you. 

You collapsed onto the double bed, hair wet and drowning into the pillows beneath your head, you laid there staring up at the ceiling, listening to the low noise of the tv across the room, and the humming of the fan above you. The light wasn’t overly warm, and it wasn’t broken. Everything in this motel was quite perfect, balanced. 

What would happen once he walked out of the bathroom? 

He wouldn’t kill you. Not after the trouble he had gone to. But would he leave you in the pretty floral-wall papered motel that was surely too good for you? Naked and wounded, to fend for yourself. You supposed you’d just call someone with their telephone. But what would he do? Where would he go? And why were you concerning yourself with such things? 

You sat up, arms cradling into your chest as the bathroom door opened and he stepped out, hair wet and body unclothed besides the towel wrapped around his waist. 

It all suddenly felt like too much. 

Being bare to him, now that he was bare to you. 

There were no wounds to heal, nothing to keep you one step ahead of death. 

And yet he didn’t seem to notice you. Instead going to the tv and turning it off, then to the window to look at the streets below. It gave you time to look, to really look at this man. 

He was strong, a force not to be reckoned with, resilient. He was beautiful for a creature like death. He was the type of man your parents would dread to see at their front door with you. You wondered if he ever thought about things like that? A family… did he even have one? Did he ever exist before acting as an agent of fate and death and all things impossible to understand? 

“You can sleep if you wish to.” He turned around, finally seeing you. Seeing all of you. Even in the shadows across the room, you felt his gaze wander, falter in certain places, burn into you with either contempt or something else. Something that left you shivering and warm. 

“I don’t think I can sleep…” 

With what looked to be a nod, he walked over to the vanity table, grabbing something and bringing it over to you. It was a glass of water he held out to you and you took it without hesitation, fingers brushing by his, gulping it down, spilling some down your chin, and onto your chest… Your chest. 

The light of the lamp left nothing to be hidden between you now. It was unmistakable that he did see you, for more than just fate. He was curious, and there was a hunger in him. Of what kind, you didn’t know. Not really. He wasn’t like any human you had ever seen. 

You didn’t flinch away when he reached a hand out. You only watched as a witness, waiting and watching. His fingers brushed away wet hair from your neck, climbing their way up to your chin, grasping it between them and guiding your eyes up, up and up to meet his from where he stood beside you. Yet not once did he go to touch your mouth, his thumb circling just below it. 

The bed dipped as he sat beside you, hand trailing down your neck, between your breasts and further down, down your sternum and to near your wound. Fingers barely grazing your stomach, then the elastic of your underwear. 

You remained silent, just as he did. You knew your eyes were saying everything, but his weren’t. 

You were at a disadvantage in every way. Barely capable of rash movement, unable to read what he was thinking or feeling.

You managed to shuffle closer to him, reaching out your own hand to him, to his hair. It was soft and dewy. Cold with fresh water. You curled it in your fingers, gently scratched your nails into his scalp, dragging them down to the back of his neck. 

He made noise then. It was hardly audible, little gasps of pleasure. His mouth twitched and it looked to be a smile, maybe unknowing to him, and it excited you. “You are delicate,” he said, matter of factly, “It makes you weak.” 

You didn’t respond, he didn’t want a response, he was just speaking truths he believed in. 

You leaned in, challenging him, wanting there to be some kind of weakness to your being delicate. Purposefully parting your lips, peering up at him, fingers running in his hair, waiting and watching. 

His hand around your neck, but not pressed down, just present, his dark eyes looking through you at first, and then at you. At your mouth. 

Did he think about this often? Was he as lonely as he seemed? 

He didn’t react. Didn’t make one move to close the distance. Only smiled, a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, because it wasn’t his smile, if he even had one. It was someone else’s. But you didn’t let down. You had come this far.

You took fate into your own hands, taking it from his, and closed the distance. Lips touching his cheek lightly, remaining there for only a short time, his body stiff as you did so, reclining away with a dread for what was to come. 

You were pleading with a man that listened to no one. 

And he answered.

Pressing his fingers hard around your neck, surely bruising it, he brought you closer, his lips on yours. Not unkind, but not devoted to you. The kiss was on his terms, his rules, you were just the witness, following along, unknowing of how to communicate with this man. 

Open-mouthed, slow and patient. Fingers pulling at his hair. Fingers clenching around your neck. Fingers finding their way to your underwear, pulling them down. Fingers scratching down his back. Finger unravelling the towel. 

On your back, him above, careful of his weight on you. Careful of the wrappings and wound beneath it. 

It hurt anyway, and you wept silently because of it, and he knew, but there was no compromising. His cock against your thigh, riding up, your leftover strength pushing yourself into him, begging, pleading for him to take fate in his hands.

He breathed a sigh of release, when his cock finally slid into you. You breathed an exhale of pain, not used to the feeling. 

Precise, slow but far from hesitant, he thrusted in and out, holding himself above you. His face showed pleasure. You weren’t sure what yours showed. 

But it was over all too quickly, and he was finished, and you weren’t. 

Not that it mattered. 

You fell asleep anyway, forgetting that death was so near to you. And when you awoke, you were left isolated, with only memory and a coin at the bedside table. 

You had been kissed by death and lived to tell the tale.


End file.
